8x10 Elwood Enlarger--moving tips

Anyone have any sage advice for handling one of these beasts? I know

roughly the size of one, but my question is how much they can be

dismantled and the feasibility of taking the head off the column &

moving it on it's back and such. We have a truck with a hydraulic

lift, a pallet jack, appliance cart, rollers and such--so I'm really

looking for solid advice on packing one up & transporting it--like

how much it weighs, how many folks it will take etc. Don't bother

answering the question past tomorrow afternoon--time's running out.

Thanks in advance.

It's sort of funny to be a high school kid and replying to this.

 

I have one!!! Just got it earlier this year, don't even have it working yet. I'll describe in as much detail as is possible.

 

First let me say that the photographer whom I bought it from delivered it to me in his Chevy Suburban and he and I moved it from there into the house where I cleaned. Then my family and I moved it to the darkroom - stepdad and I carrying it and mom carrying THE PIN.

 

The enlarger disassembles into four major parts. The first is the lighthead top. This is that big half-egg-shaped metal reflector that attaches to the top and holds the light. It's BIG - barely fits in a 50 gal contractor-type garbage bag. But it weighs all of 8 pounds or so, if that much.

 

The column itself disassembles into two parts. Both are cast iron. The lower part which bolts to the baseboard (with three bolts) is about a foot and a half high and weighs about twenty pounds. The upper section attaches to this by a very crude method - a single metal pin about 1/2" thick by about 4" long which the upper part pivots on.

 

Now the upper part. It's built like a tank. This part of the unit is also cast iron and holds everything from the focussing mechanism, bellows, to the lower part of the lighthead where the neg holder and diffusion glass are. You'll want to pull out the diffusion glass prior to the move. An 11x14 paper box makes good storage for it. There should be about five sheets which are held down by metal tabs (screwed down themselves). Be careful as on mine the edges are not seamed. Also pull out the neg carrier before the move and collapse the bellows.

 

On mine the lampholder was connected to the lower part of the column where there was a switch. This wiring was shot so I just clipped it, removed the toggle switch from the column, and rewired the lampholder. I'd recommend this as the original wire has paper insulation and the wiring of the lampholder shorted on mine, it doesn't look too good in the first place and wasn't grounded.

 

Anyway, the lampholder is held in place by one screw and once that is removed can simply be lifted out of the top of the lighthead.

 

If you have any more questions, get back to me here or by e-mail. Looking forward to hearing how it goes.

 

Oh, yeah, you might wanna know - the whole thing weighs about 250 lbs. It stands about 6 feet high (baseboard & up). The baseboard is probably about 5x5 (feet). Mine sits right on the ground and at full extension is about eight feet.

DK,

 

Jason is right on. FWIW, mine is on castors so I can wheel it to where it is less in the way. If you want to do this, I suggest pivoting the upper column down before moving it around the house, since it gets a bit tipsy. A great enlarger, BTW. Mine came all the way from Ohio and reassembly wasn't too difficult(no instructions included, of course) but getting rid of all those styrofoam peanuts was. I put them in garbage bags and drove to a packaging store where they took them off my hands---of course one of the bags developed a leak in the back of the pick up so...so...so whats the problem officer?

 

Jason, what the heck are those three holes on each side of the column for(near the base??)

 

Cheers!

Thanks! We're going to pick this thing up in a couple of hours (sight unseen) and this is a big help. Now I have a good idea of what size boxes & packing stuff to take along....I'll let y'all know how it plays out--thanks again.

John,

 

What holes? The only three holes that mine has are on the bottom of the column to bolt it to the baseboard.

 

DK - Boxes? Packing? He just plunked it in the back of the Suburban, disassembled of course. How much are you getting this for? I paid $100 for mine but that's without a lens or glass for neg holder, and the bellows is pretty much transparent at the corners.

just got back....thanks for the tips fellas.

 

Jason--yeah, boxes, packing. From the answers we were thinking "glass"...a Suburban would have been like a cadillac compared to what we took--which was an old truck with a flatbed & some side rails, plus a hydraulic lift on the back. We loaded this up with a BIG roll of what they call "ethafoam"--an archival packing material--really like closed cell foam. We took a couple of a boxes and packing blankets & this big roll to wrap the thing up in because the truck is used for hauling around debris most of the time, and is pretty grungy. It's rough riding, no AC, no radio.....

 

So I was thinking we needed to pack this thing carefully --we had about a 150 mile round trip. Took us a few hours , including getting lost along the way. Turned out the enlarger was on it's side and had been on a built-in counter that was pretty much going to stay where it was. The column & neg stage wouldn't easily come apart. We messed around for awhile, but eventually just moved it like it was. It seemed heavier than it was at first, but we got it onto a rolling cart we had--moved that out to the lift & no problem after that.

 

Now, unfortunately the lamphouse & lens were missing. We have a 10x10 coldlight that looks like it will fit, and an old 270mm repro claron in a barrel that I think we can make a board for use. A couple of guys who work in the exhibits shop say they can make a base for it no problem--but right now it's more of rainy day type project. We do have thousands of 8x10 negs and several hundred glass plates, so it will be put to use eventually. All in all it was a pretty good deal--free...donated to us. The bellows is so-so, but we did get the glass carrier. If we ever get it up & running, I'll try to let you know how it works out.

 

Thanks again--my opinions only/not my employers.

I'll look forward to hearing.

 

Maybe I wasn't clear, but as far as I know, the neg stage DOESN'T separate from the column. That's one piece. As to moving it, I'm pretty weak and I was able to manage along with one other guy.

 

I got a 10x10 coldlight with mine too, just the housing no power supply or bulbs. Can't even figure out what it needs. All it says is that the replacement bulb is a P-138 or something, and I was told it came off of a Saltzman.

 

I've also had problems with the lensboard, the one I was given doesn't fit, but when I finally get a lens, I'll probably just get one cut out of sheet metal.

 

Wow...not only printing but ENLARGING thousands of 8x10 negs and PLATES!!! How'd you get this project?

DK works in the dungeon (read: archives) of a NC state institution (museum?) photo department (hence his standard disclaimer: "My opinion only...etc."). He's a man of many talents and a font of knowledge on things ranging from archival practices to expedient tricks, a real asset to photo.net in general and the B&W Photography forums in particular.

 

Sounds like quite a project, DK.

yeah, that's it pretty much....I work for the dept that handles all the historic & preservation work. There are 5 museums aligned with the one I work for, and we're split off from the archives & records center, library and another part that handles the cultural organizations like an arts council, folklife, symphony and art museum.

 

There's a small museum in Elizabeth City, NC that's one of ours--they have 900 some odd glass plates from a studio that ran in the eastern part of the state from 1880-1920s. This is the project that we just started on--we had planned to contact these & then make dupe negs on 4x5. Now--if we can safely enlarge some of them (some are are very fragile & need work)--we might be able to actually print some. This is a longterm project--not only will it take some time to do, but funding is limited and the plates need to be rehoused as well--so we're in a holding pattern right now, if the money gets too tight, it will make more sense to rehouse them and deal with the printing later on.

 

There's always been alot of gray areas between various parts of the dept. Our main thrust is with 3D objects, textiles, paintings. We don't really collect photographs or negatives--these are transfered to the state archives. Yet, we do have them--have about 10,000 prints and 60-70K negs. The state archives by comparison though, grows everyday almost--they have something in the range of 1.5 million plus negs. We can check negs out from their archivists from time to time--and one of the nicest collections they have is from another turn of the century studio--about 18,000 8x10 negs. From this one collection of negs though--we have the cameras as artifacts. This photographer traveled the state & shot factory openings, buildings, he did portraits of the governors & their families--aerial work, parades etc.

 

There was an Elwood 8x10 there at one time that belonged to one of their staffers--who retired after many years and took it with him...so for this collection, they often contact print these & then use dupe negs....but there are all sorts of oddball sizes over there, roll film negs that are bigger than 4x5 sheets and that kind of thing. An 8x10 enlarger would be of use for both of our labs--but there's never been enough money to actually purchase one flat out.

 

Last year we had a donation that was the contents of an old studio whose owner had passed away--we got an 8x10 Century Studio camera, with the cast iron base and vignetter. Plus holders, and a ten inch or so Voightlander barrel lens with waterhouse stops & packard shutter, and a split 5x7 back on a sliding carriage--PLUS thousands of negs that wound up being transfered to a public library geneology collection. This camera is on display right now in an exhibit....but we have another almost indentical one in storage. Getting objects donated as artifacts or equipment happens quite a bit. The donor claims a tax deduction generally, and at a certain point the item needs to be independently appraised. There are all sorts of legal hurdles to jump after that & once an item is accepted, it basically becomes state property. Artifacts need to go before a review panel actually and they can be accepted or refused at this point--but once they're in the collections, they pretty much are there to stay. If the enlarger had come in as an artifact, nobody would have ever been able to use it--it would be packed up & put in a temp/rh controlled vault for the rest of it's life. This could very well happen someday, as over the years, various bits of equipment used by the museum have wound up in the collection.

 

Here's our website--note, I'm just one part of the machine--a cog--I can only claim maybe 25% or less of the images on this site... So-just my disclaimer....

 

http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/

 

as they say--these are my opinions only/not my employers.

Jason--oh yeah, we were trying to find what you called "the pin". We thought it might be the pivot point for the column, since the base appears to be cast iron, but the column looks like it could be aluminum. The bottom foot or so of the column is definitely the heaviest part...we tried to get the column apart, but even with a center punch, the pin didn't seem to want to budge....

 

At any rate, the cold head is an Aristo T12, I had bought used some years ago & never really found a use for--I'm going to donate that along with a lens. A couple of guys in the shop say they can make the base for it, and we might end up bolting this to the concrete floor of the darkroom--which is BIG. Space is not a problem back there....

 

Looking at the cold head this moring, we plan to actually remove the base part of the lamphouse & get the shop to make us a platform for the coldhead with a filter drawer underneath and a new neg carrier stage. This way they can make custom carriers for the glass plate sizes which are mostly 6x8s. The carrier will have a supporting glass underneath it for the plate to lie on top of and ease the strain on it. So really, all we'll use is the column & the bellows/lens assembly. Like I said, when it gets done--I'll see if I can post some jpegs...

 

my opionions only again--as always.

When I got the enlarger it came with two pins. It while assembling it, holding the column in the air, it took 20 min or so to get the better one in. I ended up having to grind the edges so it would fit better and then coat it with Teflon lube and bang it in with a 5 lb mallet.

 

As to the lates, why don't you contact them onto 8x10" duplicating film and then print from that, so you don't risk damage to the plates?

 

Or, if money is tight, just do the dupes.

Well.. glass plates, and early negs (nitrate etc) are hard to duplicate in one-step. Kodak discontinued the only one-step dupe film left last year. It wasn't really used much because the film didn't handle the contrast ranges of old negs meant for POP papers and chloride type contact papers. The film would do weird things to the tonal ranges of the negs....I still use it occasionally for nitrate negs, but it's a PIA sometimes. At any rate, it was about 100 bucks or more for 25 sheets of 8x10. The earlier versions had longterm stability problems too. The latter versions were supposedly more stable, but most archives, including the one next to us, quit using it years ago.

 

The way it's done is to make contact or reduced/enlarged interpositives and then make contact dupe negs from these. Use a panchromatic film for the interpos. to filter out stains on the original image--and then use ortho sheet films for the dupe negs. The interpos. becomes the master, the dupe neg is the "surrogate", access or working neg. Microfilm reformatting projects work sorta like this as well--only with microfilm they often get rid of the original and the master takes it's place. It doesn't really work like that for photographs though, unless possibly with nitrate negs or decaying acetate film--where the original is unstable.

 

Contacting them & shooting copy negs is the "economy" plan right now. Although, I came up with a plan to shoot reduced interpositives using a 4x5 camera using TMX or Plus-X, and then making contact dupes using ortho+ sheet film. So, if we duplicated them with film, we'd be looking at 900 pos/900 negs. Then, 2 sets of prints. You'd need about 3-4 cases of film, the paper for the prints, plus chemistry etc. This doesn't cover time or any other overhead. Since it's in-house, this is all absorbed into the system, if they had to send it out, I think it would cost-prohibitive to be honest with you.

 

The budget is low though--just barely covers what we figured would be a little above 4 grand for the contacts and shoot 2 sets of dupe negs. That only allows us a couple of sheets of paper per plate. Realistically, we'll probably only do part of them --every plate needs to stored properly, but not every one needs to be printed. It's kinda up in the air now where the money is coming from though...and the hurricane that just passed through the state isn't going to help much probably.

 

But, no we won't do anything to harm the plates. For one thing, --they can get brittle over time & the emulsion likes to flake off....the Elwood actually appears to have a better design on the neg stage part in that the carrier slides into the chamber--there's no pressure really on the neg carrier surface. So I envison a frame for it to fit into and be supported underneath as well. We'll probably wind up doing mostly contacts because there's no point in enlarging an 8x10 plate 1:1, and most of them will be too fragile anyways. The 6x8s might work though. These are dry plates though--very thin, about 1/8 inch or so.

 

One thing though--4x5 film is much better for us to archive onto if only because all the other files are based on this format.... Either way it's still 2 sheets of film, 2 prints each. My opinions only as always.